The wind continued to howl during the night, and we woke up a couple of times to giant gusts that seemed to threaten to uproot the tent. We woke up in the morning to the sounds of rain, and stayed curled up in our warm sleeping bags and blankets until it stopped. We left the tent to find out that the reason it wasn’t raining anymore was because it was snowing heavily. Packing up the car was slowed both by the wind and snow. After we un-staked the tent and were putting stuff in the car, we turned around to see our tent sailing off into the forest. I was also of little help, as I’m apparently really sensitive to high altitude. The camp is at about 7,500 feet and I’d noticed being short of breath the night before. In the morning, I couldn’t take more than a few steps without getting really out of breath and then getting really light-headed from not being able to breathe. So between my feebleness and the raging snow, we nixed the idea of a hike or scenic drive even further up the mountain, and satisfied ourselves with a trip to the visitor’s center where we looked at pictures of what we could have seen.
The snow stopped as soon as we left the park, and much of the driving scenery was similar to yesterday. We got to Salt Lake City to find a chilly rain. We were pretty tired from all the driving and not really in the mood to wander around wet and cold, so we didn't do much besides a quick drive around the city center. We'll probably do a bit more exploring in the morning, but a couple observations about SLC: 1) the streets are incredibly wide, and according to Lonely Planet, this is because they were designed so that a full team of 4 oxen could turn a cart around in the road. Because the streets are so big, in some places you can cross in special crosswalks mid-street, which come equipped with little orange flags that you can carry across to make yourself more noticeable.
2) There are a lot of breast augmentation ads around, including billboards, commercials, and Facebook ads from my Utah-based IP address.
3) There were several people just a *bit* too naked at the local Walmart, even allowing for it being Walmart.
-M
P.S. Happy 10-4 day!!
Oh man, you guys missed out on a major SLC attraction this weekend--Saturday and Sunday were General Conference, the biannual meeting of the LDS Church. If you had hit up Temple Square around 4pm, you would have seen about 21,000 Mormons in shirts and ties flowing towards the Conference Center...plus a couple hundred Evangelical protesters trying to piss them off. It's a sight to behold, let me tell you.
ReplyDeleteAnd other than that, I've got no brilliant suggestions for what to do/see in SLC. Temple Square, of course, and then just bask in the wideness of the streets and the tallness of the mountains. (Aren't they crazy?)
Oh, I saw in the local paper about the announcement of new temples the conference announced! And I saw a picture of the evangelicals, who just looked hysterical. I guess you can take tours around Temple Square, etc, which I wanted to do but we ended up leaving pretty early the next morning. And those mountains are ridiculous!!!
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